


The Old Man

by confucamus



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Past Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-07-14 00:05:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 13,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16028837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confucamus/pseuds/confucamus
Summary: The events of Fury Road from a different vantage. Then the events after. I have a premise and I'm going to see where it takes me.He saw no one else. He had seen no one else throughout the day. That was good. Other people meant death. Either his own or theirs and he had no more stomach for killing than he did for dying. Well, he amended to himself, except the thief. I will gladly kill the thief.





	1. Thirst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (note: 09/29/18, I updated this chapter with edits that I think will help with clarity)

Heat rose from the baked, desert floor. The air above it rippled, mimicking long vanished rivers. The Old Man grunted in disapproval. He did not care to remember such things. He had dug out a small hollow in the shade of a tall rock and fastened his cloak above in a sort of shelter. In this shade and camouflage, he had hunkered down through the heat of the day. Now evening was upon him and while the heat persisted, he knew it would soon plunge into a terrible cold. He methodically checked his surroundings once more before moving. He saw no one else. He had seen no one else throughout the day. That was good. Other people meant death. Either his own or theirs and he had no more stomach for killing than he did for dying. Well, he amended to himself, except the thief. I will gladly kill the thief. 

Several joints complained as he exited his temporary shelter and detached his cloak from where he had secured it. He draped it over his shoulders and stretched his muscles. His left knee had been nearly destroyed decades ago. It was stiff and tender at times but the leg brace he had fashioned took most of his weight off of it and eased his maneuverability. Many had sought to use that against him. Many saw the age in his face, beard, and hair and mistook him for weak. Despite the barren, parched earth, despite the radiation, despite the sickness and famine all around him, despite his bum knee, he had managed to remain strong and relatively healthy, much to the horror of those who had tried to harm him. He tentatively rolled his tongue around his mouth. It was dry and scratchy against his palate. He would need to make the water source soon or there would only be dying, no killing. His eyes followed the tire tracks as they disappeared into the distance. The thief would be making for the water as well. He was sure of it. Maybe he would dally. Maybe the Old Man could catch him there. He scanned the horizon once more and started on his walk. His boots scuffed along, sometimes inside, sometimes next to the rutted tire tracks he followed. His leg brace whined at intervals. The Old Man noted that he would need to oil that soon. 

The thief did not linger at the water source, a small crack of a spring beginning its descent into putrefaction, but it was clear he had been there. The Old Man drank all he could stomach. He wiped the moisture out of his beard and his hand came away black. He momentarily thought the water was already poison. Then he remembered smudging out his beard. 

He kept forgetting about that. His beard had begun to grow in silver in places but remained dark in others. He imagined it made for a striking appearance. Back before it might have.. No. There was no point in thinking of before. Now, interesting features were a liability. Better that people forgot you immediately. Best that they not see you at all. He dug some dark grease out of his pockets and darkened his silver patches again. He patted some sand in for good measure. All one color. All dusty brown. Forgettable. Just another lump in the landscape.

He filled his canteens and pressed on. It would be foolish to camp near such a coveted resource. Perhaps the thief was not as much of a fool as the Old Man thought. 

Days passed and the Old Man was no closer to catching up to his quarry, no closer to regaining his most prized possession. He followed the tracks through a flat expanse of powdery sand and up an rocky escarpment. He crested the summit and looked out in utter defeat. The tracks ran into the slick rock on the other side and vanished. No sounds met his ears, no tell tale dust cloud informed his eyes. The thief was gone. He sat down heavily on a small boulder and reached for his canteen. So much energy wasted. He took a long pull and replaced the cap. What now?

He glanced behind him at the path he had taken and froze. Not half a mile behind him, adjacent to the path he had climbed, was the car! His car! And there swayed the thief! He must have circled back around. Had he seen the Old Man? Had the rocks hid him well enough? The thief was somewhat hunched over as he stood, observing the white powder of the flats below him, rocking back and forth. His back was to the Old Man. Hunger and hatred gripped the Old Man as he secured his cloak. He tightened his leg brace and wrapped the main hinge in a scrap of handkerchief. All else that could rustle or clank and give away his position was stowed by the boulder. He was light on his feet, the brace took most of the weight off his mangled knee. He could make it. He could take the thief unawares and then his beauty would be his again. He bright blue eyes lost their cloudy veneer and fixated on his target. They stood out sharply from his craggy, tanned face and sand caked beard. 

Sweat poured off of him as he painstakingly crept ever closer. Every pebble was accounted for, he could not afford even the smallest of sounds. This scav, the thief, was jumpy. Hell, who wasn’t out here? But he looked healthy enough. The Old Man knew he could not rush him. He had a lifetime of assessing his enemies and this enemy was dangerous. The thief would either give him a terrible fight or leap into the car and speed away. Then the Old Man would be right back where he started. Or worse. No, silence was the way. Silence and then a knife in the ribs. 

He gingerly placed a foot over a rounded stone. The thief twitched and drove his heel into the gravel. The Old Man ducked out of sight as the thief snatched something from the ground. From his hiding spot he watched the thief’s jaw working on whatever he had popped into his mouth. The Old Man’s belly growled. 

Then he felt a tremor in the earth. He stilled, like he had turned to stone himself. The tremor was faint at first but grew in intensity in seconds. The Old Man sank further into his cover as the roar of engines crept over the hills. He cursed inwardly. Someone else had seen and someone else was coming. He had thought he was unlikely to prevail in a fist fight with the thief. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had no chance against whoever was coming. The Old Man clenched his fists, knuckles burning from the the tension as he heard the Interceptor roar to life. A black cloud billowed behind it and it and the thief made their escape. He had been so close! So close!


	2. Absurd Wealth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Old Man sees the Citadel for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (09/29/18: I edited this chapter to reflect changes I made for clarity)

The Old Man watched it all. The war party thundered over, massive tires and engines sailing over him as they launched themselves after their target. They ran the thief down easily. Too easily, the Old Man thought, it would have been different if I had been behind the wheel. He winced as they hurled explosive spears that exploded under the chassis and flipped the Inceptor ass over tea kettle. After so long, after so many years thinking the supercharged beauty was gone forever, he watched it slip from his fingers yet again. The Old Man’s jaw worked, like the problem was something he could physically chew through. He watched, concealed in the rocks as they pulled the thief to his feet and bound his hands together. A wrecker arrived and they towed the Interceptor away, dragging the tethered thief along behind it. 

“Taking you alive. Bad news for you, buddy,” the Old Man muttered quietly to himself. His thoughts turned to the countless bodies he had found, stripped of everything useful, but still hanging on a spit.   
“But good for me,” the Old Man added.   
If they were making him walk, the pace would be slow and the tracks would be easy to follow. So, the Old Man resolved himself to explore any openings they left him. 

He observed from a goodly distance the abuses the white-painted warriors hurled at the thief. He picked up some of the detritus they had thrown at him, pocketing whatever seemed useful. At night, he watched their camp through his spyglass. The thief was trussed up like meat, but they never made moves to eat him. The Old Man could see the thief’s face in that nest of rotten hair and spit streaked beard. It was a young face, but not as young as his captors. There was something oddly familiar in the countenance, in the limited, darting motions the thief made. The white-painted boys never stayed put long and they watched their camp with military precision. The Old Man noted that they were well fed and muscled and had scars patterned after engines and skulls. Every one of them had shaved heads. He also noted that most of them were dotted with large tumors. A death cult then, he thought. Something tickled at the back of his mind. Had he heard of these people before? Had he really come that far across the wastes? 

One of the warriors gazed in his direction for longer than he was comfortable. Had a reflection off his spyglass given him away? He stowed it and hid himself well. He rested as well as he could before they set off again. 

 

After several days, the white-painted boys arrived at their lair and the Old Man’s stomach sank. Three massive buttes rose, clustered together above the surrounding desert plains. Pipes, chains, pulleys, cranes, and walkways crisscrossed between the three stone towers. A mass of dying people wasted away at its feet and more greenery than the Old Man had seen in half a century crowned its top. He had never seen such a place. But he had heard tales of it and for all his confidence in himself, his legs jellied. A warlord held these towers. The Old Man had scoffed at the tales when he had first heard them. Now he saw that the stories were, if anything, insufficient in magnitude. His every instinct told him to turn and flee. Then a roar came from the ground and water gushed from three huge pipes in the side of a tower. The Old Man’s eyes were wide and his mouth hung open. The absurdity of such a display shocked him to his core. 

 

He remained and snuck down to collect water during the mystifying and recklessly wasteful daily blast from the heights. He blended in reasonably well with the shabby, shuffling masses but did not stay close to the towers. He did not want to risk catching the notice of the white-painted army that scurried over the Citadel like a horde of termites. Though clearly diseased, he wanted no part of such a hopeless fight. He had no idea what had become of the thief or his dear V8 but he had a reasonable assumption that the car and the man were both being squeezed for everything they were worth. He lingered and tried to come up with some kind of plan that would somehow bring his Interceptor back to him. It was futile, utterly futile and he knew it. It was probably already picked clean and melted down for parts. 

He observed the comings and goings of the place and realized he would need a plan to make it away from the towers. The white-painted boys took little notice of the shuffling hordes encamped at the base, but occasionally they would drag a healthier looking one up with them. Or sometimes a war party would return with a batch sturdy looking prisoners. He did not want to end up powering the gigantic winch, chained with the hundreds of others he saw turning the massive wheel with their feet. He did not want to be tossed from the heights as he had seen so many others thrown. He did not want to end up like the ones he never saw again, like the thief. 

The Old Man would need to look sick and would need to leave when visibility was low. This kept him at the towers’ base much longer than he would have liked. The balancing act of keeping a low profile and fending off the horde around him was wearing him down. 

One morning, he felt something in the air. His old injuries began to ache. His bum knee throbbed like the day it took a bullet. But he smiled to himself. A storm was coming. A big one. It would be extremely dangerous to travel during the fury bearing down on them, but he could make good time just before and in its wake when the white-painted boys were still removing dust from their engines. He stood to make his final preparations. He hoped the warlord would release some water on them that day. He would always welcome a top off of his canteens. Especially with the impossibly pure water that flowed from the depths of the tower.Then the giant mechanisms of the towers began to come to life. First, a myriad of pursuit vehicles and motorcycles were lowered to the ground. Then a large and impressive rig followed. Not long after came a tanker bristling with spikes and outfitted with two mini guard towers of its own. 

The Old Man watched the warrior woman take the wheel of the rig. Her metal gauntlet gleamed in the sunlight. No, not gauntlet. That was her arm. He listened to the War Boys chant the contents of the tanker. The lead War Boy seemed older, almost his age. Aquacola, the Old Man laughed to himself. Then he shivered at the implications of “Mother’s Milk.” A rickety old man watched the warlord through binoculars. The Old Man took that as his cue to use his own spyglass. If the thief’s face had gently brushed the recesses of his memory, finally seeing the warlord seemed to punch him the gut. Some aspect of wild haired, masked tyrant chilled the Old Man's bowels. He felt the madness he had tamped down so many years ago stir and start to uncoil. He dropped to one knee and breathed hard. Visions overtook his sight and he reeled. He looked at his hand, the one he had used to catch himself lest he fall to the ground completely. It now clutched something. What was it? He pulled it up to his face to examine it. A shoe. A child’s shoe.The Old Man blinked back tears. It was not a shoe. Just a stone. He fought to master himself and rose to his feet as the water surged forth from the pipes above. He shoved people aside and topped off his canteen, soaking himself in the process. 

The water on his skin and clothes was good. It helped to clear his mind. The warlord, the Immortan Joe, as he had styled himself, was not who he had imagined. He was not the same person. He had seen that person die a very long time ago. He had seen to it, that that man was dead. He watched the War Rig and its entourage pull out and head for Gastown and the Bullet Farm. He reckoned the rig could withstand the approaching storm. He was not so sure about the vehicles around it or the men on its back. He found a nice boulder and waited until it was time to make his break for it. 

 

Then a scant ten minutes later, the fortress erupted into a frenzy. Someone had clearly kicked the hornet's nest. The winch shook to life again as vehicle after vehicle was deposited on the ground. It was an enormous undertaking, and when they were all lowered to the ground, the old man reckoned it was the biggest armada he had seen in ages, if not ever. The gigantic tires shook the earth and the rumble from the monstrous engines roared off the Citadel walls, vibrating through his chest. The Interceptor was among them. It was a polished chrome now and outfitted with weapons rather than fuel tanks, but he would recognize it anywhere. The Old Man watched it with hungry, impotent yearning. How could he get it back? Certainly not now. How long before they returned? How long could he linger here?   
He caught sight of the leader in his Frankenstein’s monster of a Cadillac. The tyrant’s blackened eyes brushed past him and the Old Man felt the madness within him rear up again. He could not let it take him now. He would not! The army sped off, leaving a massive curling dust cloud in their wake.   
The Old Man slowed his breathing again and weighed his options. It seemed that the majority of the warriors had gone along with all the war machines. Indeed, all he spied were a few thugs manning the lift and hundreds of skinny children, tumors bubbling up under their white paint. Whatever had offended the warlord so much was clearly in the initial party. The Old Man had no way of knowing how long the warriors would be gone but he knew if there were any vehicles left, now would be his chance to take one. Maybe he could use it to follow the war party at a distance and watch for ways to isolate the Interceptor, take it from its current driver. He made his way into the caves. His first confrontation provided him with a fresh gun and ammunition. Had they really brought all their warriors with them? If the resistance he encountered thus far was any indication, he might be able to take all three towers himself. 

The wealth of this place was astounding. The weight of a working firearm in his hand, a pocketful of bullets, the smell of cool, wet air, and green, so much green.. his mind was alive with long dormant memories. And the madness. The madness was there as well. It was intoxicating. 

“How’d you get in here, scav?” muttered a voice. The Old Man brought the gun up level. He briefly admired his own muscle memory. The sickly, white painted boy continued stumbling toward him. The Old Man reckoned the boy couldn't be older than 20. The fervor he saw in the boy’s eyes disturbed him. The boy was eager for death, ecstatic by the thought of it. The Old Man decided against using the gun, a whole swarm of these zealots might hear the shot and come running. He closed the distance to the boy and engaged his hands with the messy work. The boy sank to the ground but not before shouting, “VALHALLA!!”   
His scream reverberated off the cave walls and echoed the word long after its author had perished. 

The Old Man cursed under his breath.   
“I should have just shot the poor bastard,” he thought. 

Movement and noise down the corridor grew closer, louder. The Old Man retreated and took a different passage. His knee throbbed.


	3. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Old Man tries to make sense of the twisting tunnels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (09/29/18: I edited this chapter to reflect changes I made for clarity)

The passage sloped upward and then back down again. The Old Man cursed when he was deposited again on the desert floor. A few of the wretched blearily took notice of him. He doubled back into the passage and barreled into a pack of boys. They burst apart like rotten limestone. He stared down at them for a moment. These were children, some no older than eight! And they were weak. They rubbed their skinny, painted sides where bruises would bloom from the tumble he gave them. One regained his feet and rushed the Old Man. The Old Man caught him by the arm and held off his feeble attack. The boy barely came up to his shoulder. The Old Man drew up his fist and hesitated, hating what he was about to do. Then he popped the boy in the nose with a solid fist. Not enough to break anything, not enough to do lasting harm, just enough to blind him with tears, the Old Man said to himself as he ran back up the passage. The boys flailed over one another, trying to resume their pursuit. 

The Old Man ran up the twisting passageway. His lungs were burning. He had had no cause to run in ages and now he was paying for it. His legs burned, too. Walking all day exercised different muscles than the ones he required for this sprint. His knee let him know that the brace he made was also not adequate for running. 

Suddenly the passage gave way to bright light and a sheer drop. The Old Man dug his heels and stuttered to a halt. His arms swung a few wild circles as he fought to regain his balance. He was maybe ten meters up. A large chain ending in a hook sailed past and he launched himself at it. He caught it and wedged his boot into the hook. He looked back. The children had followed him up the passage. They were shouting and pointing, trying to get the attention of the heavily armed men guarding the lift and its winch. In seconds he was leaping again onto a much higher ledge and disappearing into the rows of machinery he found there. 

He heard the children continuing to yell and the guards yelling back. He could see them plainly from his hiding spot. The men gesticulated angrily at the children and the now empty hook. He saw them throw one last dismissive wave at the children then turn back to their watch. The Old Man smiled. He may have a few more minutes with which to work. 

He observed that the War Boys and the War.. Pups.. were the only people painted white. They were scores of laborers, dressed not too dissimilarly from him, going about their day within the tunnels and caverns. He made to grab a sack of stone, to follow a line of other workers doing the same, but he caught his reflection in a shiny chunk of scrap metal. His beard shone bright silver below his mouth again. He reached down into the dirty ashes around the stones and worked it into the hairs on his chin. The reflection was dull and dark now. He smeared more across his face for good measure, hoping it would be enough to throw any War Pups who might recognize him off the scent. He hefted a sack and hurried after the workers. 

 

They led him on a grand tour of the back tunnels of the Citadel. As they made their way through he noticed tunnels that were slick with moisture. He breathed in deep. The scent swam around his head and dove into his subconscious, loosening memories buried there. More than once, he thought he felt a hand on the back of his neck. The hand was cool and gentle. He turned quickly to find nothing and no one there. He shook himself and pressed on. They all deposited their rocks into a pile and made their way back the way they had come. 

The Old Man ducked down one of the slick tunnels when he figured no one was looking. He followed its twists and turns. There were forks and intersections at sporadic intervals. He tried to keep track of the way he had come. This place was a labyrinth. He was lost. He encountered other people in the halls but they were all laborers and none challenged him. Eventually, the tunnel gave way to light again. He leaned against the wall blinking for some moments, his eyes slowly adjusted to daylight again. This time he was hundreds of meters in the air and a sparse walkway reached out across the air and into another tower. 

“Wrong tower,” he whispered to himself, noting the huge pipes below Joe’s skull symbol carved into the rock. He ought to turn back, try to find a way into the other tower. He ought to be using his time to find a vehicle to get as far from this place as possible with as many supplies as he could steal. He wavered there and cursed as curiosity took him over. He wondered if he could find his way to the skull’s mouth, where Joe and his deputies had made their speeches. 

If the other tower had been damp, this tower was dripping. And much more heavily guarded. He kept his head low and found another group of workers to fall in line with. No guards questioned them. No one stopped him.   
Too confident, the Old Man thought. They don’t suspect a thing. But then, who would be so foolish as to attack this place? He laughed at himself and pressed on. 

He ducked away from the group and stumbled into a large room with a fine mist in the air. Long rows of plants swung suspended from a mechanism bolted to the ceiling. He stood with his mouth agape. Then closed it and swallowed hard. He hurried over to the wall furthest behind the hanging shelves. He pressed his back to the wall and steadied himself with outstretched arms. He let his skin drink in the wet green of the room. 

“What are you doing here?” an old gardener asked quietly.   
The Old Man flinched hard and searched for a lie. He had not known someone was there. The gardener chuckled at his floundering.   
“I’m lost,” the Old Man said finally.   
“Yes. I do believe you are. I think you should go. You are in a very dangerous place and they will do terrible things to you if you are caught,” the gardener said.   
She clipped three leaves from a nearby plant and handed them to the old man.  
“Here. These are good to eat. Now, get out while you still can,” she said.


	4. Illumination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (09/29/18: I edited this chapter to reflect changes I made for clarity)

The Old Man retraced his path to the bridge just as he finished chewing the greens he had shoved in his mouth. They were a revelation. The last time he had greens was.. a very long time ago. He started to cross and a gust blew him into the railing. He clung tight and peered out over the desert. Too late, he thought. He had forgotten about the storm, too keyed up from the day’s events to even pay attention to his aching joints. Now that he saw the size of the thing, the ferocity of it, he was glad he would not be out in it. It blocked out the sky from horizon to horizon. Lightning clawed its way out of the billowing dust clouds like demons ripping their way out of hell. It was a monster. 

A siren went up and the wretched people below became a panicked mob, pushing and scrambling up the slopes, into caves, and diving into hollows. Then the Old Man heard another cry go up. A pack of War Pups shrieked from another bridge, pointing at him and jumping up and down. Their bridge swayed violently. The Old Man was glad that his walkway was made of much sturdier stuff. He hastened to the other side, into the middle tower to try to find a way to avoid the gang of white-painted children and the churning maelstrom that bore down on them all. He stopped briefly within the tunnel and tried to adjust to the dark. Then light bulbs- actual light bulbs!- flickered on. They were affixed to the wall at regular intervals and illuminated his way. They also illuminated the hulking form of a masked guard. 

“You! What are you doing here?” the guard demanded, his meaty finger pointed at the Old Man.   
The Old Man weighed his options. He could not run back out, not with the storm so close. The guard continued his rapid advance. The Old Man had very little time to decide. He drew the gun he had hidden in his cloak and to his horror, the guard barreled forward, jamming the Old Man’s arm across his own chest. The gun was now pressed flat between their bodies, pointed uselessly at the far wall. The Old Man could smell the guard’s breath through his mask as the huge man leered down at him.   
“Uh uh,” the guard said shaking his head, “not today oldtimer.”  
Then he smashed the Old Man in the face with his broad forehead. 

The Old Man woke sometime later. The roar of the storm was deafening. His head throbbed in time with it. He tried righting his body in the cramped space he was shoved into and the pain in his skull intensified. He attempted opening his eyes and momentarily feared he had gone blind. His eyes were swollen nearly shut and the room was as dark as new asphalt. He finally managed to make out a few shafts of light cut through bands of whirling red sand. A pair of light bulbs swung crazily on their cords as the wind whipped through the cavern. 

He reached out with shaking hands and gripped the bars of his cage. Then he pulled himself into a better sitting position. Sand needled its way into his eyes and wounds. He fumbled for the edge of his cloak and pulled it over his face, falling back against the bars. He felt blood seeping from his forehead as he fell back into unconsciousness.


	5. The Blood Shed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (09/29/18: I edited this chapter to reflect changes I made for clarity)

All was quiet when the Old Man woke again. Sand fell in tiny fans from his cloak as a tremor went through his body. He hissed through his teeth. That small movement electrified his nerves and began the initial tally of his numerous injuries. His joints now complained of confined spaces and dehydration rather than the hellish storm. He wished for just a little more space so he could straightened out his throbbing knee. He cautiously felt about his face and found rough scabs across his nose and forehead. He realized then that he was in a hanging cage, turning high above the sandy cave floor. He stared down between his legs, between the bars, as the cage swayed slightly from his movement. His stomach twisted in hunger. How long had he been out? 

 

The Old Man heard quiet footfalls enter the cavern and he froze. Then he heard the thump of metal on sand. Then again. He peered out from under his cloak and saw a small War Pup with a shovel and pail. The boy was excavating the cave of the dust deposited there by the storm. The Old Man wasn’t sure how the boy could tell between the sand that was supposed to be there and the sand that wasn’t. 

“Water,” the Old Man croaked. The boy startled momentarily, gazing up at him. Then the boy peered around himself, checking both halls before he bounded over to a shelf and brought back a rusty canteen. He had to overturn and stand on his bucket to reach the Old Man’s outstretched hand. 

“Thank you,” the Old Man rasped. The boy shook his head and put a finger to his lips. The Old man nodded and set about opening the container. His fingers were weak and crusted with blood. It took some time before he could loosen the cap. The water in the canteen tasted of decaying metal but the Old Man drank it down anyway. He was careful to take small sips first, no need to retch all over himself and the boy below. The boy turned abruptly and then frantically signalled for the Old Man to hand the canteen back. The Old Man had not heard anything. Was his hearing going? He considered keeping the canteen. He didn’t know when he would get another chance at water. But he decided angering his only tenuous ally would not help his future chances of substantially better water. 

The boy had replaced the canteen and righted his bucket before the Old Man heard anything. A group of other small boys shuffled in with their own buckets and spades and set about hauling the excess sand away. None looked at him. The Old Man looked around and saw he was not the only man dangling from the ceiling in a cramped cage. The other men looked unconscious. Some looked dead. None of them looked like the thief. He wondered at his fate. 

He watched the boys slowly uncover terraced stone benches along the cavern walls. He watched them uncover tables full of instruments and metal slabs with drains in them. There were tubes and hooks and needles, there were old anatomy charts and books stacked on a shelf. 

“Where the fuck am I?” he hissed to himself. One of the boys stopped his toil and addressed him. 

“You’re in the Blood Shed, Blood Bag,” the boy said as if it were the most obvious thing in the whole world. 

The Old Man worked over the possibilities.   
“Blood Bag, huh? Well that means I need water or my blood will dry up,” he said. 

The first boy, the one who gave him the canteen eyed him suspiciously. The other boy shook his head.  
“No, Blood Bag. That’s not our job. Organic told us to do our job and nuthin’ else. But don’t worry, Organic will be back soon and he’ll know what to do,” the boy said and went back to shoveling.   
“You shouldn’t have even talked to him,” another boy whispered.   
The boy shrugged in response and hauled his bucket of sand away.   
After hours of toil, the boys disappeared and the Old Man was left dangling in his slowly oscillating prison. He picked sand out of the hinges in his leg brace. At least the ones he could reach tangled up as he was.   
‘The Organic,’ he thought. He pondered the name. Names meant more and less these days. Who would dub themselves the Organic? The tools, tables, and Blood Shed all lended themselves to a surgeon he surmised. He had no desire to meet this surgeon. His hand drifted to his boot and felt for the file tucked away near his calf. 

Late in the evening, one of the other prisoners began to moan. As night fell his moans turned to shrieks. The Old Man marveled at the other man’s fortitude. He continued to scream long after the Old Man assumed his vocal cords would fail. 

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” screamed one of the men the Old Man had assumed was dead. One moment he was silent and crumpled in the bottom of his pen. The next he was slamming himself against the bars of his cage, spittle flying from his mouth as he yelled. 

The Old Man settled back as well as he could and reached for the file. There was no better time than now to put his plan into motion. He kept his movements small and made good progress on the locking mechanism to the floor of his cage. He wasn’t looking forward to the drop, but he figured there were ways to mitigate it. He paused and placed his hands over his ears, giving them a rest from the cacophony. Perhaps now would be a good time to lose his hearing. His hands appreciated the break, too. The swelling and stabbing pain there were most likely the onset of arthritis, though he had no way of really knowing. There were no more doctors. Then he chuckled, ‘maybe the Organic will have something to say on the matter.’

The two men were so loud that the Old Man did not notice the shouts of children coming down the hall. Then the bulbs hanging from the ceiling flickered to life and a mob of boys poured in. With them came the aged, lumpy War Boy the Old Man had seen calling cadence to his crew. There was dried blood across his cheeks and twisted mouth. He seemed to be limping slightly. This wasn’t the Organic, was it?

“I’m fine, I’m fine! Quit yer fussin,” the War Boy said as the pups ushered him over to the stone bench. He thumped down and scowled at the prisoner who had never ceased shrieking. 

“Gimme that prod,” the War Boy demanded. The pups fell over themselves to hand him a pronged staff. Wires spiraled out of the back end in a tangled coil leading into the wall. The War Boy lurched forward and jabbed the screaming prisoner through the bars. The prisoner shrieked even louder and his body arched into an unnatural angle.   
‘Cattle prod,’ the Old Man noted.   
The Way Boy gave him a few more pokes and the man fell quiet, whimpering in a heap in the bottom of his cage. 

“Ace, we’ll hook you up, you sit tight!” squeaked one of the pups.

“Bugger that!” Ace said, “I don’t need it anyway. I just need to sit for a spell.”  
The Ace studied the Blood Shed more closely.   
“Organic didn’t leave any of his guys here?”  
The pups all shook their heads.  
“There’s some War Boys but they’re real sick,” squeaky said.  
“They gonna die soft,” another said mournfully. All the pups bowed their heads and entwined their outstretched fingers above their heads. 

The Old Man had seen this gesture before. The pups all intoned “Vee-eight!” in a solemn and quiet chant. The old, lumpy War Boy frowned and pushed up his goggles. The Old Man thought that he had been right; they probably were of an age. Ace, the pups had called him. Ace held out his arm.   
“Come here pups,” he said and the pups piled in as though they had been waiting for his permission all along. Ace held the smallest ones and comforted them as best he could. The slightly older ones leaned in in a press of white painted hides. The Old Man thought Ace looked for all the world like a grandfather comforting a cohort of grandchildren. Except for the tumors and white paint, that is. 

“Anybody been watering these Blood Bags?” Ace asked eventually. 

The pups startled. Some had been lulled into sleep.   
They all turned to Ace and shook their heads. Ace nodded and moved to extricate himself from the pile.   
“Ok pups, look here. You three fill the buckets with water, you two get the cups. You two run up to Cook and tell him Ace needs 12 ration bars. The rest of you get the shit buckets and shovels. Hop to!” he said and clapped his hands.   
The pups leapt into action and the Old Man noted that Ace stayed put, testing his leg from his seat on the stone bench. He watched as the aged War Boy winced when his thumbs found a damp patch on his trousers halfway up the outside of his thigh. Some of the flesh was scoured away from Ace’s back as well. The Old Man tucked that away in his head for future use. 

The pups quickly completed their tasks and made to prop up ladders to the cages. Ace ordered them to wait.

“Oy. Blood Bags. Hurt these pups? You get zapped. Don’t drink your water? Get zapped. Don’t eat your food? Guess. Don’t clear your bowels? I think you get the picture,” he said. Then he gestured for the pups to proceed. 

The Old Man took what was proffered gently and ate and drank in a measured way. The ration bars were a paste of some kind. Not much flavor but better than anything he had eaten in ages, except of course the greens the gardener had shoved in his hands. “Get out while you still can.” Her words echoed in his head. 

Then he noticed Ace staring up at him. He was frowning. His twisted mouth curled further with contemplation. 

“This Blood Bag new?” he asked.

“Yeah. He snuck in before the storm. Winchman caught him near the Green Bridge,” one of the pups said.

“All the way up there, huh?” Ace said.   
The pups recoiled, hearing the admonishment even though Ace’s tone had been even.   
“And he killed Snuff in the lower tunnels,” another whispered.  
“Did he?” Ace said, then pushed himself up to his feet. He favored his left leg heavily as he drew up near the Old Man.   
“Who put him in the cage?” Ace asked.   
“Winchman,” one pup said, “scav was out cold. Winchman busted him up good.”  
“I see that,” Ace said. “I also see he still has most of his gear. Winchy search him?”  
One of the pups nodded vigorously.   
“He took a gun and some bullets off him,” he said.   
Ace nodded and dragged his eyes off the Old Man.   
“You all bunk up here. Take shifts and watch him. Anything weird happens, come get me. I’m going to chat with Winchy,” Ace said and limped off. 

The Old Man didn’t like this at all. He had stowed his file when the pups came cavorting in. Now he wished he had stowed it better. They were focused intently on him and they were not going away.


	6. Chaos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (09/29/18: I edited this chapter to reflect changes I made for clarity)

The Old Man woke the next day to a pile of War Pups sleeping on the stone tiers. They were tangled together, some snoring softly, bellies rising and falling in the rhythm of deep sleep; all except one. That one was watching him with bored indifference. But he was watching, so the Old Man could not continue with his plan. Instead he slowly, painfully worked himself into a standing position in his cell. The hinges on his leg brace were gritty with sand and the straps were overly tight around his now badly swollen knee. He saw stars briefly as the blood unpooled in his extremities. Then he pressed as close as possible to the side of the cage facing away from the boys and relieved his bladder through the bars. His piss made a small mud puddle in the sandy floor below. 

The relief it brought was a momentary respite for his battered body. He shook himself out and straightened his clothes. He turned back to the pups, his stiff left leg almost buckling under him. He cursed quietly through clenched teeth. 

Some of the other pups had begun to wake and the Old Man noticed the other prisoners watching him. He noted their hands were bound behind their backs and their feet were tied together with a chain that snaked up to the top of their cells. No such fetters impeded his movement. The other men had been stripped of everything but their shirts, pants, and shoes.   
‘No wonder Ace was angry. Whoever put me in here really fucked up,’ the Old Man thought.   
A mixture of jealousy and hope played across the other prisoners’ faces. The Old Man shook his head at that. He was no-one’s ticket out of here. If the chance came, he would be gone and he was not taking anyone with him. 

The Old Man looked back at the War Pups, they were all awake and stretching at this point.   
“You.. pups.. going to give us some more water?” he said. His voice sounded craggy to him.  
The pups looked at each other and broke into groups similar to the ones they had been assigned the day before. Several disappeared down the tunnel. The Old Man presumed they would be back with more ration bars. If this kept up, his bowels might actually move. 

The pups propped the ladder against his cage this time with trepidation. Perhaps they had realized a prisoner who had his hands free was more dangerous than one who did not. Maybe Ace’s instructions spooked them. Whatever the case, the Old Man did not want them coming at him with their guard up. He preferred they forget all about him. He sat back down and folded his hands in his lap. The water sloshed in the bucket as one of the boys filled a cup and handed it up to the boy on the ladder. The Old Man took the cup and downed the water. The child had lost some of his fear after the second cup had been offered and received without incident. If the pups thought of him as harmless, his chances of escape would greatly increase. 

The boys moved their ladder and bucket over to the next cage and started the process again. They were less skittish around that prisoner. His hands and feet were bound. But as they brought the cup to his mouth, he struck out and bit the boy. His teeth dug into the pup’s small forearm and held fast. In his panic, the pup kicked the ladder over and was left dangling, held up by the jaw clamped around his arm. He screamed.  
The pups on the ground scrambled to right the ladder. Others struggled with the cattle prod. More came running in from the tunnel, ration cakes in hand.   
All the while the Old Man was sawing furiously at the lock with his file. He would have only a few moments of chaos on his side, but he was determined to use them. Then, halfway through the width of the shackle, the aging metal cracked and gave way. The Old Man cursed in surprise as he plummeted to the floor. White-hot pain shot through him as he landed on his bad leg. His vision blanked-out for a moment and his skin grew clammy. His stomach churned and he forced himself not to vomit. Then his vision righted itself and the scene of chaos continued before his eyes. A couple pups had noticed his fall but even they were more occupied with helping their ensnared comrade.   
The Old Man backed away. There would be no better chance than now to flee. The pup continued to scream. The Old Man stared at his feet for half a beat and cursed again. He overturned a bucket under the attacker’s cage, stood on it, and reached up through the bars. Several pups startled and jumped out of the way. He took hold of the prisoner’s shirt on both sides of his neck and then let his weight drop off the bucket. The fabric pulled tight across the man’s jugular. He sputtered and let go of the boy’s arm as he struggled for air. As soon as the boy was free, the Old Man let go of the other prisoner’s shirt. He didn’t have time for this shit.   
He backed away from the pups, some had finally figured out the cattle prod and held it vaguely in his direction. All was quiet except for the sobs of the bitten pup and the choked gasps of his attacker.   
“I just want to leave,” said the Old Man, “Just let me leave.”  
The pups wavered. The Old Man had helped them, saved one of their own. But the Old Man was a Blood Bag, they would catch holy fukushima hell if they let him go.   
Then Ace burst into the room.   
“What the Joe-damn shit is this?” he demanded.  
His gaze slashed through the room then fixed on the Old Man.   
“What’d you do, Blood Bag?” he hissed.  
“Naw, he just fell out, Ace. That other one bit Pats,” a war pup shouted pointing at the heaving prisoner.   
“I just want to leave,” the Old Man said again.   
“You shut your trap,” Ace yelled, pointing a heavy wrench at the Old Man.   
“He helped Pats. Choked that one out with his own shirt,” another pup squeaked.   
“You boys scoop up Pats and get him clear. The rest of you go get Winchy and the Brakeman. We gotta get this Blood Bag back in his spot,” Ace said, starting to circle.   
The pups fell silent and did as they were told.   
“Now wait,” the Old Man said, “I just want to leave. Just let me walk out.”  
“Can’t do that, Blood Bag. You killed two of my boys and you stole from the garden. I’d have let Winchy kill you already if I didn’t know Organic needed more Blood Bags,” Ace replied.   
Though they were probably around the same age, Ace’s lean muscle worried the Old Man. He watched as Ace tried to hide his limp. At least we both have bum legs, he thought.   
The Old Man rushed Ace, knowing if he waited any longer, he would be fighting three grown men, not just one. His injuries slowed him down, but not enough- Ace sidestepped the Old Man’s attack and swiped down with his wrench. The downward swing missed flesh but struck the rubber heel of the Old Man’s boot, taking his foot out from under him. He tumbled headlong into the sandy cave floor. He rolled onto his back in time to see Ace diving for him again. The Old Man kicked Ace in his leg wound with all his might and Ace fell doubled over in pain. One long stream of expletives fell from his mouth.   
The Old Man scrambled to his feet and made for the tunnel with the most daylight. Ace tried to follow but his leg gave out completely as he tried to stand. His strong arms propelled him over the sand, however, and he made a grab for the Old Man. The Old Man slammed his boot into Ace’s face and limped quickly from the cavern.   
Daylight hit him hard as he finally found the vehicle bay. It dawned on him that he would have no way to get one of these motorcycles down from such great heights without the platform. So he settled for his freedom and rode a chain to the ground, diving in to hide himself among the wretched people gathered at the foot of the Citadel.


	7. Tattoos

A sudden commotion caught the History Man’s attention. A few of his fellow Wretched jostled a stranger as he plowed through their group. The stranger slowed himself and pulled his cloak over his head. The History Man was careful to assume a disinterested attitude but was inwardly ecstatic when the stranger sat near him and tried to blend in with crowd. Such a person would have tales from the outside world. Seemingly, he would have news from inside the Citadel as well. But what ignited the History Man’s interest the most was the stranger’s age. Though not as old as the History Man himself, this man had surely known the world before and he was always eager to dredge up a world not yet descended into madness. The History Man allowed himself a smirk. This stranger might elude the detection of those that dwelled above, but any Wretched would pick him out easily. This man was too well equipped, too hale and hearty to pass as one of them.  
The History Man cleared his throat. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” he said.  
The stranger's face morphed from caution to annoyance and he continued to stare at nothing. The History Man nodded to himself and decided on a different tack.  
“I'm trading water for news,” he said. 

As soon as the word water passed the History Man’s lips, the stranger’s face fell again and he leveled a wilting glare on the other man. His pale eyes were piercing against his filthy countenance. His beard was dark and slashed with silver.  
“No news,” the stranger rasped.

Such a striking appearance, the History Man thought. The stranger had turned to glare at the towers.  
“Best you leave with what you have. Whatever you left in there is gone. The fact you made it out once is a miracle facilitated by a lack of the Citadel’s normal inhabitants. Escaping again..” the History Man let his words trail off with a shrug.  
The stranger regarded him once more. 

“My name is Alan,” the History Man said, extending a gnarled and heavily tattooed hand to the stranger. It felt nice to use such an antiquated gesture.  
The stranger glanced at the proffered hand and looked back at the History Man’s also heavily tattooed face.  
“Nice tattoos, Alan,” the stranger said.  
The History Man smiled and looked down at himself.  
“Yes, with no more books, one must preserve history somehow,” he said but stopped when he looked up again. The stranger had already walked away.  
Alan nodded and sighed. ‘So much for dreams of invigorating conversation,’ he thought and chuckled. ‘At least we'll have a show if this stranger makes another go of it.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After reading almost every single fan fic for MMFR, there are some aspects from other stories that I've adopted as head canon. Tyellas' treatment of the History People is a prime example of that. Credit where credit is due: read Tyellas' fics. They're rad.


	8. Dying Soft

Ace cursed furiously as he spat out a tooth. The old scav had finished the job the Boss had started. Then he winced. The memory of Furiosa turning on him was like a physical blow. How could she? How could she traitor Joe? How could she traitor the crew? How could she traitor me? Ace blinked a tear out of his eye he swore was caused by his much-abused nose.  
He scooted over to the still crying War Pup on the ground. The small boy cradled his wounded arm against his chest. Ace gently turned the arm over and examined the wound. Organic would need to look at this soon. Human bites were nasty and friendly to infections. Ace hoped all the crews would return quickly.

“Ace! I seen him out there with the Wretched! I saw the scav! I know where he is! Let's get him!” another pup squeaked, jumping up and down.  
Ace held his nose in place and waved the pup off.  
“Quiet down, pup. We ain't going after him out there,” Ace said, his gruff voice taking on a nasal lisp between his swollen nose and missing tooth.  
The pup’s disappointed pout was almost comical.  
“We don't have enough back-up to go in the crowd, lad. All the War Boys are still out with the Immortan. We don't need these scavs getting any ideas while we're down so many warriors.”  
The pup trudged back out.  
“I'll just keep an eye on him.”  
“Good lad,” Ace said.

Then the Winchman and Brakeman came charging in with a herd of pups, feet pounding on the sand.  
“Ace! The fuck happened here?” the Brakeman puffed. His lungs did not seem up to the task of moving his heavy form with such speed.  
Ace shook his head.  
“Joe-damn scav broke out and booted me,” he muttered.  
The Winchman laughed.  
“Losing your touch, old man? First Bag o’ Nails knocks you off the Rig and now creaky, old scavs are getting the better of you.”  
“Furiosa could take you without her arm, Winchy. And that scav would never have broke loose if you'd shook him down proper,” Ace hissed. 

The pups huddled near Ace and their wounded comrade.  
“Calm down there, pup. We'll get this seen to. Probably end up being a proper scar,” Ace said warmly.  
The small boy sniffed once more and smiled weakly at Ace.  
“You coddle these kids too much, Ace,” the Brakeman said.  
“Bites are nothin’ to take for granted,” Ace replied.  
“Ah, he's gonna die soft anyway. He's all lumped up,” the Winchman said with a dismissive wave.  
Ace lurched to his feet, wobbling a little with his wounds.  
“Back to your post Winchy!”  
The Winchman and Brakeman lumbered off muttering the whole way.

Ace turned back to the pup and his companions. He cursed Winchy. If anyone was going to die soft, it was that coward. The pup was cradling his arm again, but his head was down and his shoulders were slumped. Ace eased himself onto the floor next to the boy again. He tried to keep his face even; the pain in his leg shot through him like lightning.  
“Listen, pup, you got that wound today fighting for your home. You ain’t gonna die soft. Winchy don’t know his arse from a hole in the ground,” Ace said. He put an arm around the pup’s drooping shoulders.  
“You and me, let’s go have a sit on the bench. These other boys’ll fetch us some water and medicine,” Ace said, then looked at the other pups, “Ain’t that right?”

 

The other pups nodded vigorously and fell over themselves to comply. Some helped Ace and the pup to the benches. Some ran off to fill water buckets. Others argued over the various bottles on the Organic Mechanics shelves. 

Ace eased off his boots and then his trousers. The wound on this thigh was an angry red and purple gash. It was hot to the touch. He nodded to himself, acknowledging his own danger.  
“Boil some water pups. Bring me that tub of ointment near the bottom there,” he said. It was going to be a rough afternoon. 

Above them, the Blood Bags watched from their slowly spinning cells.


	9. For Want of Water

The Old Man trudged through the horde of people that dwelled beneath the Citadel’s towers.   
‘The Wretched’ he had heard them called.   
This whole place was wretched and those that dwelled within were wretched as well. Never find a more wretched hive of scum and.. No! None of that. No remembering. The Old Man shook his head. He needed water. He needed his canteens back. He stood staring at the tunnels, chewing the inside of his cheek.   
“Am I really this stupid?” he muttered to himself.   
Trying hard not to limp, he walked over to the sandstone wall of the vehicle tower and leaned against it. They had not given chase. That was probably smart, the Old Man conceded. ‘These folks out here might rip them to shreds given the opportunity’ he thought.   
He sighed and slumped harder against the wall. His eyes drifted away from the towers and out into the dessert. There was no real choice. Without water, he would be dead within days. He snorted ruefully and allowed himself to remember just once.  
“I’m getting too old for this shit,” he whispered. 

He took stock of himself. The wall of muscle called the Winchman had relieved him of his gun and water but not much else. He also seemed to have not lost anything in the fall from his cage or his scuffle with Ace. That was a relief. His clothes, cloak, and boots were filled with a lifetime’s cache of the rare and useful. 

He checked his leg brace once more then started his survey of tunnel entrances. To his shock, the one closest to him held a small face. The boy, the one who had brought him water, was tucked away in the shadow of the cave. His white-painted face and torso were barely discernible in the inky dark of the tunnel. The boy was staring at him. The Old Man started to back away but a slight shake of the boy’s head stopped him. The boy looked around at the Wretched. When he was satisfied none had seen him, he looked back to the Old Man and pulled a pack into sight. He set it down, well within the shade. The boy nodded slightly then disappeared.   
The Old Man stood there sweating for some minutes.   
‘It’s got to be a trap,’ he thought.   
He stood for some minutes more and scratched his beard. The pack just sat there, far enough in the darkness that anyone who had not been looking for it could not have seen it. He glanced around at the Wretched. He found the old, tattooed man staring at him. His face, under the inked print, was amused curiosity. A few others started to take interest in him as well. Some looked at the cave entrance. 

‘You goddamned fool,’ he thought and pushed off the wall.   
He told himself that if he did not go get that pack soon, some other scav would be on it. He walked over to the tunnel, his knee complaining the whole way. He stopped a few yards shy and tried to let his eyes adjust to the dark. He could see nothing but the pack. He glanced around again. More Wretched were watching him now. He cursed in a slow hiss. All this attention was bad- very, very bad. 

He hunched in anticipation of an attack and marched into the tunnel. He snatched up the pack and walked back out as quickly as he could. He cut a line away from his audience and sought the shelter of different rocky pillars and disinterested faces. 

The pack was nothing more that a rough-hewn leather sack. It was heavy and the movement within was unmistakable. It was water.   
The Old Man sat on a small boulder well away from the Wretched and dug through the sack. In it he found three of his canteens, all full. He replaced them in their accustomed positions about his person. He had not gotten them all back, but three was certainly better than none.   
Then he froze as he looked back in the bag. In the very bottom was a gun and ammunition. He carefully looked behind him. No one was watching. No one in the crowd, no one above in the craggy heights.   
Confusion washed over him. His limbs felt numb. He steadied himself and looked back at the empty tunnel entrance.  
“Why?” he whispered.


	10. The Open, Dusty Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naming people always takes the longest.

Song Book finally eased her grip on the steering wheel. She released it completely with her left hand then pressed her fingers into it until her knuckles cracked. Then she did the same with her right hand. It did a little to ease the tension she had amassed in the past 24 hours. Her training kicked in and she started the breathing cycles her Initiate Mother had taught her so many years ago.   
‘In through the nose, two, three, four. Out through the mouth, two, three, four,’ she thought, her mind and body quickly falling into the well-practiced rhythm.   
The desert before her was flat and firm, dust billowed up behind the behemoth she drove. Two of the girls lay cuddled together in sleep next to her on the enormous front seat. All the rest were in the back. She took her eyes off the path ahead and risked a look over her shoulder.   
Furiosa lay still as death, propped up against the man’s chest and cradled in between his legs. She was breathing softly, though. The terrifying wheezing that had escaped Furiosa’s lips earlier was gone. Her color was back, too. All thanks to the man. He had helped her lungs and opened his veins to her. He had fought like a nightmare when needed. Then he had been quiet and giving. Song Book was leery of men, but this one had proven his reliability many times over in the last day.   
A tear streaked down her wizened face. What a terrible day! The scant remnants of her tribe had been crushed to near obliteration. All that were left were Yngvild, Furiosa, and herself.   
Song risked another glance back. The fire-haired girl was sleeping, holding Furiosa’s hand. Yngvild was on the monstrous car’s back platform, rifle in hand. Song trusted nothing would escape her notice or the subsequent bullet.   
“One man, one bullet,” Song Book whispered.   
It was still a ways off to the Citadel but she woke the small, angry girl. Toast. She said her name was Toast. She woke quickly, apprehension etched into her face. Song shook her head.  
“Everything is okay. I just wanted to make sure we’re still on course,” she said.   
Toast visibly relaxed. She flopped back against the seat heavily then studied their surroundings.   
“I think so. Only Furiosa would know for sure,” she said then turned to gaze at her liberator.   
“Will she be okay?” Toast asked.   
Song looked back at the long lost daughter of the Vuvalini and sighed.   
“She’s strong. If infection doesn’t take her, I believe she will be okay,” she replied finally. That was the best she could do. No sense in lying to the girl.   
Toast’s impassive visage turned wistful for a moment. She breathed in deeply and let it out in a big puff.  
“And if this Citadel has as much clear water as you say, we stand a good chance of helping her stave off infection,” Song added with a thin smile.   
Toast’s lip quirked up in a half grin.   
“I can’t wait for you to see it. We’ll make it ours. It will be a new Green Place,” she said.  
Song let the smile on her face bloom. After so much blood, why not allow for some optimism?  
Toast started inspecting one of the finest handguns Song had seen in decades.   
“Guess this is mine, now,” Toast muttered.  
Song nodded, her eyes on the wastes in front of them again.   
“Keep what you kill,” she said.   
Toast sighed again and set about taking an inventory of the interior of the Gigahorse.


	11. Distant Objects

His father had been gone for over 48 hours. The entire armada had been gone for over 48 hours. What should have been a quick chase and retrieval had stretched into something Corpus could not yet name.   
Yes, the sandstorm had been enormous and doubtless catastrophic, but most of the fleet should have been able to weather it. Certainly the War Rig and the Gigahorse would have survived.   
And of course, no fight against Furiosa should be considered easy. Corpus thought his father may have been unconsciously paying her a compliment. He sent every warrior he had after them. Surely no one would ever say his father doubted her ferocity? Furiosa was not someone to be underestimated.   
But sending your entire fleet after one crew, even if it was her crew, seemed like overkill. Did his father fear her that much? Or did he fear losing the child that much? Corpus let the bitterness in that line of thought linger for just a moment. Then he shook it off.   
Or was it the rage?   
Corpus chuckled. Furiosa had always been daring, especially as a child, but this was by far the most audacious thing he had ever seen her do. He wondered if her crew had been in on it. Or had she been relying on the storm to relieve herself of them? She would have known it was coming. Just like Corpus felt it in every painful twist of his body, in every remnant of every broken bone he had ever had, Furiosa would have felt it in her truncated left arm. Corpus knew. She had told him when they held a tentative friendship, thousands and thousands of days ago.   
But no. Furiosa was brave, powerful, vicious, and tenacious, but she was no tactician. And she would not have known the storm was coming before she smuggled the wives into the Rig. She was at least half flying by the seat of her pants. 

Where had she found to hide the wives?? The Rig was crawling with War Boys. They had to have been in on it. His father was going to shred them all. 

Corpus’ mind had been circling in this way for two days. In a way, it helped keep his mind from even more troubling thoughts. Thoughts like what would happen if his father did not return. He signaled for his War Pups to push his chair to the telescope. Again, Corpus made a careful sweep of the horizon, looking for anything that might bring him news and an end to this awful waiting.   
A single plume of dust, just a smudge in the distance, disrupted the horizon. Corpus waited for more to pop up. Perhaps it was a news car? Maybe the rest of the armada would soon follow? It was half an hour before Corpus could positively identify the vehicle. He wanted to breathe a sigh of relief upon seeing his father’s car tearing across the desert toward home. But something niggled at the base of his skull and dread rose in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wasn't planned. I started writing it when I read about his death.   
> Witness, Quentin.


	12. Trust

The Old Man observed the warlord’s vehicle as it approached. Was that the self-assured, leisurely pace of a returning despot? Or was that caution? Apprehension? The Old Man did not see the warlord, the Immortan, behind the wheel. There was no pallid skin or toothy face mask. There was a rather plain looking man. An oddity in its own right. He had not seen such a person in the armada when it set off days ago. He could see several young women beside him and others beyond them.

There was also a large, lumpy object wrapped in white cloth laid across the engine. It steamed and smoked. It gave off a scent reminiscent of singed hog-fat. Memories flared up in the Old Man’s mind, ghosts rose up in flickering images from his past but the accompanying nausea kept him from succumbing to the despair. He shook them off. He calmed his roiling stomach and kept the water there where it belonged. There were no hogs left and only one thing would smell like that as it sizzled on the superheated engine block.

The Gigahorse taxied up to the staging area and awaited its ascension. The lift was halfway descended when the guard called the halt. The plain looking man climbed out and put his hands in the air. The Old Man’s mind squirmed on the edge recognition. He absentmindedly fiddled with the topmost belt of his leg brace while eyeing its near copy on the strange man. The man stooped and threw the sheet back revealing the lumpy, sizzling mass on the flagship’s hood. The lifeless body of the Immortan Joe was laid bare and the crowd of Wretched around him erupted into a frenzy. He backed away from the jostling madness, back to where others stood and observed calmy.

“THE IMMORTAN IS DEAD!” the cry went up.

The man kicked the warlord’s body off of the car and the crowd tore into it. They carried pieces of Immortan Joe off to their respective camps at the base of the Citadel.

“One has to wonder if it will get worse here or better.”  
The Old Man turned to find Alan standing next to him. The aged, tattooed man glanced at him briefly, smiling a small, weak smile. They both turned back to the scene before them.

The man was helping a one-armed woman from the cab, up onto the hood.

“FURIOSA!!” was shouted, quickly followed by a chant of “LET THEM UP,” that spread through the crowd faster than the remains of the previous tyrant. At last the pups high above on the platform moved into action. They eeled past the Brakeman and shoved the lever, setting the platform into motion once more. The guards stood down and the Gigahorse drove onto the lift, the man and Furiosa still perched on its windshield. Dozens of the Wretched piled in beside the enormous car as the elevator took them into the air. 

“Ah,” Alan sighed, “the youth. Who knows why they do anything these days?”

The Old Man fingered the gun in his pocket. The boy. He had given him water. He had given him a weapon. Sure, the Old Man thought, I helped one of them but what did that really matter? Now the boys were helping the ones who had killed their god-king. The Old Man’s thoughts were cut short.  
The pipes came alive and water gushed forth from the heights. Alan smiled more convincingly this time.

“That was a clever decision. The Milking Mothers solidify not only Furiosa’s safe return, but their own standing in the new hierarchy,” he murmured.

The Old Man did not care about any of that. It was all gibberish to him. He was staring at the man holding Furiosa steady. Something grabbed at his attention and would not let go. He was already forming a plan to steal back into the Citadel when the young man slipped away from the party and hopped off the platform. The Old Man was momentarily caught off guard. Why would the conqueror relinquish his prize? Then he checked himself. It was what he would have done. This would not last. Even if this were new regime had a soft hand, especially if the new regime had a soft hand, they would be attacked and overtaken in time. Nothing could last. Everything would only be taken away. It was odd to see someone make decisions like he would. 

The Old Man shook his head and regained his focus. The man was making is way through the crowd not far from where he stood. He watched intently, his mind working hard to place the face, the gait, anything to alleviate this nagging whiff of recollection.

“From Scav to Blood Bag to ‘Redeemer,’” Alan chuckled as the man pressed pass a throng a people saluting him with the sign of the V8.  
“We’ll have no end to the tales of The Driver now,” Alan laughed. His smile curdled when he saw the Old Man’s expression. 

‘From Scav to Blood Bag to ‘Redeemer,’ Alan’s words echoed inside the Old Man’s head. Of course! How did he not see earlier? The Old Man knew those eyes. They were not as haunted or harried as they had been weeks ago. The beard was gone, the mane was shorn, but it was him. He knew that face. It was the thief! The Old Man lowered his gaze, locked into the man’s progress through the crowd. Alan broke his sight line briefly. He was staring at him. Alan’s expression was wary, disgusted even. The Old Man could only the imagine the predatory visage he wore now.

“What are you going to do?” Alan asked, barely above a whisper.  
The Old Man’s lower lids twitched once under his eyes, the barest hint of a scowl. That was his only answer. He pushed past the Wretched around him and closed the distance between him and the thief. The Interceptor was gone, presumably. But, presumably, the thief knew where. And even if he did not, he would still pay for taking away the Old Man’s only link to the world before. 

The thief neared the edge of the third stone tower and lurched around its rocky wall. The Old Man cursed under his breath and pressed forward, limping after the thief as fast as his wounds would allow him. He drew his gun from his pocket but kept it down. Training he had received a lifetime ago screamed at him to slow down, to proceed with caution. But feverish hunger overrode his better judgment. He stumbled around the wall and then drew up short. The thief was a few feet away with his gun aimed at the Old Man's head. 

“What do you want?” the thief croaked. 

\-----

The Old Man's scowl deepened. He felt the textured grip of the gun in his hand. Maybe the thief had not seen, maybe it was hidden by the folds of his cloak as it hung by his side. A faint breeze stirred those folds and the rough fabric grazed his knuckles. 

“Go away,” the thief said, not bothering with getting an answer to his question. 

There was something so excruciatingly familiar about the thief's face. The Old Man could see recognition pass over the thief's features, a brief ripple of surprise betrayed him. So, the thief knew him. Why could he not place the thief? 

The younger man started to back away, gun still trained on the Old Man. He glanced quickly over his shoulder looking for more assailants and back at the Old Man. 

“Go away,” the thief repeated.   
The Old Man stayed put but assumed a more relaxed attitude. If he seemed like less of a threat, maybe the thief would drop his gun. Then the Old Man could bring his up level, maybe wing him, get the info he needed before the thief bled out. 

The thief did not drop his gun, though, and continued to back away. 

“Go away, Max,” the thief whispered.  
The Old Man froze like ice had fused his spine. His name thrown out so casually was a knife in his gut.   
“I know what you want. I don't have it anymore. No one does. It's gone. Fire and metal,” the thief’s voice was cracked and hollow. 

The Old Man scowled. His trigger finger ached, begging to be used. Then his knee gave out and he hit the ground hard. His left hand struck out into the sand, holding him up, and his right remained concealed in the folds of his cloak.   
“Confucamus,” he whispered though gritted teeth. He looked up to see a brief smile disappear from the thief’s face. He stayed there propped up on his hand for a moment breathing hard, sweating under the mounting heat, and squinting up at the thief.   
“Well boy? Are you going to help an old man up?” He said.   
The thief drew up to his full height and let out an exasperated huff. The suspicion on his face was obvious. The Old Man held up his hand, beseeching. The thief just shook his head and kept the gun pointed at the Old Man.   
“No,” he said.   
The Old Man rasped out a laugh and let his head hang in resignation. Then he slowly sat back on his haunches, his own gun still obscured at his side.   
“You know, I know I know your face. And I know you know me, but I can’t place you,” he said squinting at the horizon.   
Then he looked the thief in the face again, “Who are you?”  
The thief frowned and twitched. His eyes swung around wildly for just a moment then calmed again.  
“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered finally.  
The Old Man reached out again, brows doing little to shade his eyes. The thief breathed in deeply and looked out at nothing. He slowly brought the gun down as he assessed the Old Man again. Then he tucked the gun into his pocket and shuffled over to where the older man waited. The thief grasped the Old Man’s proffered hand and was yanked down into the sand. A gun barrel was pressed firmly under his jaw. The thief’s expression went dead.   
“Now, thief,” hissed the Old Man, “take me to the car.”

**Author's Note:**

> ::SPOILERS::
> 
> I know that George Miller does not think of his Mad Max series as a linear story. I know that Max is more of a vehicle for wasteland tales. Having gotten that out of the way, this is my exploration of the fan theory of Fury Road Max actually being the Feral Kid and Max from the first three films is still around, haunting the landscape. Basically this is just a fun challenge for me to write. I'm hoping to get Maximosa worked in there somehow but going to leave off the tag for now. Trying to see how I can make that happen in this arc. I will continue to update tags as needed.
> 
> Thanks! <3


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